


Ballad of the Kids

by GodsJester



Series: Life Sucks [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drowning, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Confessions, M/M, Nightmares, Sad, Sharing a Bed, Swearing, Trauma, kids with powers, no beta we die like my characters do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodsJester/pseuds/GodsJester
Summary: Join me as I work out stuff for my story, including fleshing out characters, drabbles, and chapter ideas
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Life Sucks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2048072





	1. The woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revamped for the third (and hopefully final) time

We were in the woods, that's what I remember. That, and how I was in the very back with Ian. Storm was about ten feet in front of us with Nyx, with Megan a bit in front of him, and at the front was Amira and my sister. It was getting darker as we walked, the sun setting behind us. We needed to be over the state lines and into Virginia by the morning, so we’d definitely be walking all night. After about another twenty minutes we were forced to rifle through our things and find flashlights, and in those minutes we decided to take a break for a bit. We ended up sitting in silence in a small semi-circle around the base of a pine tree, where Amira had lit a small bundle of sticks on fire. There was silence except for the crackling of the dried leaves, and the sound of Megan eating a piece of fruit she’d found in her bag, I felt her nudge my arm and offer me a bite of banana. Even though I hate bananas, I still said yes.

  
It was another ten minutes later that we were back on our path, and the temperature had begun to dip. We were all on high alert, we had to be, the world was dark and the combined bounty on our heads totaled well over ten-thousand dollars at this point. So many people would benefit from our bodies, but we couldn’t be weighed back by those thoughts, we can’t let ourselves.

  
We’d been walking for a better portion of the night when we began to hear other footsteps. Amira pointed them out first when we stopped around three in the morning, as we had begun to feel tired. Her head shot up, eyes fixed over my shoulder.  
“What?” I asked  
“ _Shhhhh_ ,” Amira says, walking past me, drawing a sword from her belt loop. This set everyone on edge, Ian pulled his gun and cocked it, staring into the darkness.  
“There’s nothing there, ‘Mira.” He whispers, lowering his weapon. I see it in her face that she doesn’t believe him, then her actions say it too. She shuffles around in the darkness for a second before producing a branch-like stick from the brush around us. She lights the tip up with the palm of her hand and swings it in an arch around her, nearly catching Ian with it. But, he was right, there was nothing. Just us, the rustling of the wind, and Amira holding a stick on fire. How on-brand it was.  
Ironically enough, the next time it’s Ian that hears something. He blamed Amira for freaking him out but insists to keep going, and that the sooner we land on the other side of the river the sooner we don’t need to worry about wildlife anymore. Unlike Amira, who had returned to her way of no-nonsense, Ian stayed on edge, like a deer in hunting season.

  
I stayed in the very back probably the entire time, which made me the first person to hear it the last time. There was another group of footsteps, maybe three or four sets. My hand sat on my gun, thumb on the hammer. It was too late by the time I had my finger on the trigger because that's when I felt the cold metal of a gun barrel against the nape of my neck.  
“Hands. Up.” a voice hisses. I shut my eyes and take a breath,  
“What do you want? I don’t have any money-”  
“You know we don't want that, Daniel.” I can feel their breath in my ear, they reek of coffee and rotten fruit. “We outnumber you. This is the end of the line.”

There's screaming from a while ahead, then the sound of a couple of rounds getting fired off, and it sounded like someone had been hit too. More struggling.

"Pin that one. She's putting up a fight." someone grunts

"Watch the hands on him, he's vicious." says another

The woman begins to tighten her hand around my neck, sharp nails pressing into my muscles. Another hand slips into my holster and removes my gun and I feel her inspect it,

"A beretta." She unloads it, I hear the loaded bullet hit the ground. "Classy."

"It was a gift." I huff, 

"Now who," she tightens rope around my wrist, "would gift a teenager a _gun_?"

My ears started ringing, and no matter what I did I couldn’t fight it. My skin burned and I felt the energy draining from my body. Then, my feet hit the ground in a cold room, and my knees crumple beneath me. I’m out before I hit the ground.


	2. The Cell

It probably took me a while to come to, there were no windows where I was. It was a six-by-six room, made of concrete, with a single light on the ceiling. Ice cold too. I could feel buzzing at the base of my school, but with no words coming through, just frustration and static. 

“ _ Who’s there? _ ”

The static cleared slightly and all I got through was my own name. Someone was reaching for me.

“ _ I’m here, I hear you _ .” 

“ _ Daniel. It’s Storm. _ ” I hear his voice clearly now, he was here

I feel hope for just a second, “ _ Where are you? _ ”

“ _ A cell?”  _

“ _ Me too _ .”

“ _ Are you ok? _ ” I ask. That’s all I can do

“ _ Roughed up but, alive. _ ”

A door slammed open somewhere and there was the sound of heavy boots stomped past the door, then stopped, turned back, and my door swung open.

“ _ You _ .” The man snarled. He was a short, scruffy man, with no hair and tattoos covering almost all of his visible skin, and he was angry.

“We can hear you. And we advise that you  _ shut up _ .” 

“ _ Damnit _ .” Storm says

“BOTH OF YOU!” Tattoo man howls, “Under penalty of DEATH, prisoners are not allowed to converse.”

I spit up at him, almost instantly, my cell door swung open, and a large boot collided with my torso as he stomped down onto my shoulder, sending my face plummeting into the hard cold floor. There was a crack, and then wet heat streaking down my face and chin. My gun was missing from my belt loop, so all I could do was reach out and grab his leg with my not-stomped arm. I did end up digging my nails into his skin where it was exposed, which caused his boot to move, now pinning my head to the floor. 

“Be a  _ good boy _ , Daniel. You know the consequences.” He growled, now kneeling near me. I was hoisted by the collar of my shirt and tossed backward. “Death will not be swift for the defiant.”


	3. Momento Mori

After about an hour of attempting to get the door to buckle and a zap to the neck from something like a cattle rod I ended up blacked out on the floor, again. If I had a nickel for every time I’d been knocked unconscious in the past four years, I’d have enough money to hire lawyers and sue Avelwood for damages. My head was filled with static the entire time I was out but when I woke up this time, I wasn’t alone. There was a cold hand on the side of my face.

“Hey.” He said softly “I knew you were alive.” He tenderly touched the spot on my neck, it was raw and blistered now, he moved his hand when I winced.

“You weren’t waking up. They got nervous, ironically enough.”

“They sent you?” I ask. Storm nods gravely.

“The other cells are empty, Dan. There’s no contact with anyone else, just us.”

I sat up abruptly, making myself dizzy in the process

“What do you mean?”  _ Where was Megan? Where was my sister? _

“They didn’t blind me to bring me here. The doors are two-way mirrors, and there's no one in any surrounding cell.”

“Shit, man.”

“I know.” He seems sad to agree, but there’s certainty in his voice when he says, “We’ll get out of here, we’ve survived worse.”

And, for a split second, I believed him. I believed in us. I believed in myself. I believed in the hope in his voice. It was when the door was thrown open and Storm was yanked out by his hair, and a tall lady with bloodstained hands hoisted me up by the elbow. The tattooed man was the one restraining Storm, and he had managed to wrestle him into handcuffs. They led the two of us in similar directions, but, at the last moment, the bloody woman turned and began to guide us down a long hallway, she opened a door to, you guessed it, another room. It was larger this time, and resembled a basement. Pipes streaking across the ceiling, a drain on the dead center of the floor, slick vinyl floors, it was simply just some place you don’t want to be trapped. I didn’t expect it to be silent though. No groaning or steaming pipes, no water dripping from the cracked ceiling, no voices from beyond the door. Absolute nothingness. Silence. Minus the clock.

_ Tick, tick, tick, tick.  _ It started off quiet at first, and I assumed it was just the faint clicking of my joints as I walked, but no. It steadily got louder.  _ Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick. _ And, with each passing second, I knew that separation was dangerous. We were all good on our own, but we couldn’t face trained Homeland militia by ourselves. We  _ needed _ to be together. They knew that. They weren’t dumb. They wanted us seperated and in pain.  _ That’s _ why they had sent Storm in, they wanted me alive, to suffer. Or they wanted him alone with the corpse of a friend. Either way, it was sadistic.  _ Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. _

It keeps going.

I knew what they were doing. They were trying to psych me out. They wanted me to spiral out of control, and lose control of my powers.  _ But what if that wasn’t it? _

_ One day, that tick will stop. The sand falls to the bottom of the hourglass eventually, Dan _ .  _ Remember that. For mom and dad, for Stephen. For Gram and Pop, one day. Your sister too. Even yourself.  _

_ You’re  _ not _ invincible.  _

_ You  _ can’t _ save them all.  _

_ Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. _

_ You’re  _ alone _ right now.  _

_ This is your corner of the universe. And your  _ tick _ is dependent on nothing that you can control. _

I couldn’t let that voice in. _ Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. _ They didn’t get to win like this. 

_ Giving up. What a way to escape _ . The voice hummed in my head.  _ It would be so easy. After all, they’d still have Sara, what is the point of a pair anyhow. _

“We’re stronger in numbers.” I say, “You can’t take that.”

_ You’re children. Playing the role of pawns in the grown-ups war _

“I chose this. I had a duty-”

The voice clicks at me in disagreement  _ You had a legacy to live up to, Daniel _

I shut my eyes tight as I felt the room begin to blur around me, and when I opened them, I saw it all. I saw that first day, the deli and the rain, the alleyway, the shattered mirror in the boys bathroom and the bloodied hand with it. Avelwood towered above me, much different, a reminder of what it used to be. I saw the sewer and the murky water that ran through it, I saw the traps before Amira did. I saw the gash in her leg, bloody and fresh. I saw Megan and Ian, scared, just like Sara and I had been, I saw D.J and Metta in the dining hall. I saw the high priest and flames. I saw Avelwood in flames. I saw bodies and guns and ID tags. Shattered spell orbs and acres of trees leveled. The water from the lake was frothy and tinged with blood.  _ The beginning and the end _ .

I cant hear myself over the ticking anymore, I can’t hear that sadistic voice either. My thoughts are all ticking. When it begins to speed up, I feel my own pulse match it.  _ Now’s the chance _ . That was my voice this time. The pipes had to lead somewhere, even if I couldn’t crawl through them, there had to be a boiler room of some sort, or a release room, like in  _ Shawshank _ .

The voice clicks in disapproval again, and I hear gears beginning to turn, one wall had opened into a larger room.  _ Memento mori, young one. _


End file.
